For A Fair Deal?

Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchliff, Brian Leishman and Rachael Maskell have been given back the whip. More fools them for taking it, but with Labour in fourth place in the polls, and with a nightmare Budget on the way, the Government needs any friend that it can find. Fourth place. 15 per cent. Three points behind the Greens. Imagine that Labour had been in that position under Jeremy Corbyn. The Conservatives are only one point ahead of Labour, so within the margin of error. The two leading parties are the Greens and Reform UK.

But Reform is on 33. Its lead is commanding. Ed Davey has given up any argument from high principle for Proportional Representation, and now has the commendable honesty to advocate it as the only way, if there were a General Election this year as there is not going to be, of preventing Nigel Farage from becoming Prime Minister. Although to which item in Richard Tice's Budget would the Liberal Democrats object? They were the more pro-austerity party to the Coalition. Yet for many years they had advocated an increase in the basic rate of income tax, to pay for, well, you name it. Not that Rachel Reeves will run any risk of defeat, but out of interest, which way will the 72 Lib Dems vote?

Similarly, what does Reform say now about PR, of which it used to be in favour, and from which it will soon benefit heavily in Wales, a place that the right-wing London media have always theatrically despised, but which provides about half of the advertisements on GB News? Like the arguments for the monarchy and for a republic, the arguments for PR and for First Past the Post are both rubbish, meaning both that the case for change had not been made, and that that change would not be the end of the world. But as within political parties, so between them, the reason to favour one electoral system over another is that it increased the chance of defeating one's enemies. Even the Lib Dems have stopped pretending otherwise. How soon will Reform?